Sunday, November 01, 2009

Dear JOE NOCERA: Fuck You You Fucking Fuck

Some fucking piece of shit called Joe Nocera has written a stinking pile of dog-load about how he grew up a Red Sox fan his whole life (he's an old-ass motherfucker), but starting this year he "warmed up to the Yankees" and is now rooting for them for the following un-fucking-believably stupid reasons:

1. Likes the way A-Rod has dealt with his steroid scandal. (You mean the one he caused by taking fucking steroids, you jackass?)

2. George Steinbrenner has become much easier to admire later in life. (Psst...go fuck yourself.)

3. Loves those four Yankee assholes that have been on the team for a while, calls them the "Four Horseman" (capitalized), and tells me that I, the reader, and I fucking quote, "(would) have to have a heart of stone not to want to see them win it all one more time before they retire."

You dick. You'd have to have a heart of stone to WANT to see guys with four rings already on the richest, most evil team in history win AGAIN. Is this article some kind of sick practical joke? Did this fucker lose the shittiest bet in history?

He wraps it up by claiming--and unless I still haven't woke up and this is all a horrible nightmare, I swear this is a real article, you can click the link--that the Yankees ARE THE UNDERDOGS. Let's look at JOE NOCERA's definition of an "underdog": "Team with most championships, most money, with home field advantage, and who are favored to win."

That's a fucking overdog, asshole. And that's what you are. An overdog. Definition: Dog who's so goddamn old that when he shits, it comes out his mouth, so you have to turn him over and put him out of his misery. (All apologies to actual overdogs who are smarter than this old, old fuck.) The worst part: the guy's from MY current town of Providence.

Note to all humans: This man does not represent us. He obviously has suffered some kind of head injury. Ignore his words. And Red Sox fans, including this guy's friends, when this guy realizes what he's done and comes begging for forgiveness like that dumbass woman who "divorced" the Yankees because she just couldn't deal with them doing slightly better than great for like a month, lock your doors. Do not let him in. He's already gone.

He says we should all be doing it because we have "grown complacent, if not downright spoiled" and the Red Sox "have started to grow a little stale". He says another Yankees World Series celebration "could be the best thing to happen the Sox at this moment in team history".

And about Mazz--I've been listening to his show with Felger on my way home from work. It really just seems like stuff they do to get ratings. The guy even said in the ALCS that he's rooting for the Yanks because it's "a better story" or some crap, and when Felger got on him for it, he was like, Fine, I'll root against them when they get to the WS. And then the WS started and he's like, Okay, I'm rooting for the Yankees. There's something so odd about the way I keep hearing all this reasoning as to why people are rooting FOR the Yankees lately.

Nocera is a pretty well-known business writer, probably best known for editing the book about Enron that was made into a documentary. I'm not aware that he's ever written about sports before. It's a very stupid, "look-at-me-I'm-being-contrarian" piece, but I can't get worked up over it. It's the kind of article that used to annoy me, but these days I just ignore.

Just wanted to talk again about the review of A-rod's homerun. It's true that it might not have landed over the fence but that actally wasn't the issue. The umpires had decided (and told the managers) before the game that any ball that hits the camera would be called a home run. Still shouldn't have been there though.

Well, maybe I'm just getting to be an old fart, or maybe getting past a major health scare 18 months ago has changed my outlook a little. I have no idea what Nocera was actually trying to do with that piece, but I glanced at it and thought that he was just trying to get a rise out of Sox fans to get a lot of page clicks, and I just couldn't bring myself to care. He may have actually been sincere with that piece, but I think it's more likely he was trying to elicit exact the reaction that you had.

It's just like with the radio guys that are obviously trying to "start a debate"--either way I hate what they're doing. I'm gonna be either mad at them for their fake feelings OR mad at them for doing something so cheap as putting out fake feelings to get a rise out of people. But the key is to expose these people so that if they do try to say they were kidding, people can know what kind of scum they're dealing with.

I guess I'm kinda w/ AJM on this one, too. I just don't see why some old guy flip-flopping around this is worth my caring. Especially since he didn't bring out any new material about anything really, but certainly no new reasons that might explain his change of heart. It's all the same old platitudes: "Wait till next year..."; old Italian people love Joe D; Johnny Pesky held the ball; Sox fans are miserable/I needed therapy for choosing them; "Now I can die in peace..."; etc.

Every quote or angle in this drivel is banal and overdone, including the "Four Horseman" bit. It's so unoriginal. The only thing he left out was the classic "My heart thawed a little after 9/11; the people of NYC needed that..." bit.

Basically, I read it rolling my eyes, not roiling w/ rage. So some old guy is stirring the pot, or even, god forbid, saying these things sincerely. So what? It's a stupid article written by some guy who's probably not as sharp as he used to be. Not worth a coronary IMHO.

I put up a post about this jackass yesterday when I discovered the Times article. Complete douchebag.

I love Allan's thinking. Reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where the U-boat captain has to relive that night he torpedoed a ship every night for eternity. You can throw in Buckner's error and Dent's homer into the mix as well.

I totally agree with you; that article would've made a lousy, banal blogpost. Obviously it's complete drivel for the NYT to run something like that. Unless it was your grandfather or someone similar that you've looked up to your whole life saying that, I guess I don't understand why it would ruin your day.

Just nauseatingly disappointing--and, the whole world has to see it. And the fact that this guy who supposedly has decades of experience being a Sox fan thinks nothing of taunting all of us at a really shitty time. And just the way he's so nonchalant about it, like, Yup, it's so easy to just suddenly go against everything you stood for like very recently.

I think Matty makes an excellent point about the article just rehashing all the hoary old cliches about why Sox fans would admire/root for the MFYs; I think that's a large part of why I just kind of glanced at it and yawned. And I kinda said this above, but to put it another way for emphasis:

Pure speculation on my part, but I suspect that if someone were to point out this blog post to Nocera, he probably wouldn't be contrite or offended or angry. I'd expect him to just smile. The worst possible reaction for this guy would be if everyone just ignored him.